Excursions: Deconstructing TEFL (original) (raw)
Related papers
2023
Despite efforts to acknowledge the legitimacy of nonnative English speakers (NNES) in English language education, the unequal treatment of them and the superiority attributed to mainstream-English-speaking teachers from inner circle countries (Kachru, 1985) persist. Conceptualized as a dynamic process rather than as a predetermined product (Alim, Reyes, & Kroskrity, 2020), race has been given more visibility in TESOL scholarship to promote antiracist educational practices. From a raciolinguistic perspective (Rosa & Flores, 2017), this study delineates the racialized experiences of an Asian, non-mainstream-English-speaking teacher, and elucidates the shifts in her conceptualization of race, as well as the (re)construction of her identities and ideologies as a teacher. It illuminates how language, race, and other interrelated categories are discursively (un)marked in the racializing process. The chapter concludes with suggestions to promote anti-racist research and to enact socially just practices.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Existing research has highlighted the complexity of the discourse surrounding ‘(non-)native speaker’, particularly with regard to how teachers are perceived by learners. This complexity has been compounded by globalisation, which has increased transnational mobility of teachers. Thailand has been particularly affected by this, as its population of local teachers has been complemented by a growing yet highly diverse contingent of migrant teachers. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted at three secondary schools in Southern Thailand, which used a combination of interviews and focus groups to examine how various local participants in English teaching and learning (teachers, students, parents, administrators) perceived migrant (i.e. non-Thai) English teachers, focussing particularly on how these perceptions used ‘(non-)nativeness’ as a point of reference. Our analysis focusses on two overarching themes, ‘race’ and ‘inequality’, which also invoke links with broader discourses: Firstly, we show that the perceptions of migrant teachers were heavily racialized, with ‘nativeness’ equated with whiteness and Westernness and ‘non-nativeness’ associated with Asianness. Secondly, we find that the participants’ perceptions involved significant reference to inequality, as access to ‘nativeness’ represented a symbolic resource accessible only to learners with sufficient economic capital.
Towards Postcolonial Pedagogy: The Ka:rmik language Teaching Approach
Modern English Language Teaching in Asia and Africa is in general severely constrained by the after effects of colonialism. In spite of independence from the colonialists, ELT in India and other parts of Asia and Africa has not evolved as an independent system with its own theories, strategies, and practices to suit the indigenous spatiotemporalmateriality, socioculturalspirituality and inclinationalinformationalhabituality in its diverse contexts. All the time, the ELT practitioners in these two continents have become blind sheep following this theory and that theory which are atomic, theoretically defective, and socioculturalspiritually colonialist; finally, they have not produced promising results. That it is so can be seen from the overall standards of the students in real life situations. Therefore, de-colonisation of English language teaching is necessary to produce a learnerfriendly and holistic teaching in the non-native English environment.
(Re)production of symbolic boundaries between native and non-native teachers in the TESOL profession
Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2022
Although various attempts to confront non-native teachers of English (NNESTs) marginalisation in the language teaching profession have taken place over the past few years, the English language teaching (ELT) domain clearly demonstrates quite the opposite; remaining structured and articulated by boundaries that are shaped by language ideologies, it marks an exclusion of non-native English teachers from participating in the field of foreign language teaching on equal terms with native English-speaking teachers (NESTs). Using a Bourdieusian lens (Bourdieu and Passeron in Reproduction in education, society and culture, Sage, London, 1990; Bourdieu in Language and symbolic power, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991), this paper examines the way symbolic violence is exercised through exclusionary and discriminatory practices that arbitrarily impose the culture of a dominant group and result in the production and reproduction of symbolic boundaries between native and non-native teach...
Motha’s (2014) and Sayer’s (2012) books both shed light on the ways ideologies on race and language often shape perceptions of identity and legitimacy in the lives of English language teachers. These books complement each other, as they both use ethnographic methods to illuminate and illustrate many of the tensions and forces at work in teaching English, both inside and outside the United States. Departing from traditional book reviews, this one considers two books simultaneously. This dual review begins with an overview of the aims and chapter summaries from Sayer’s (2012) book, followed by a similar overview of Motha’s (2014) book. A discussion follows on the pair’s similarities, some benefits of their juxtaposition, and their contribution to the discussion in the literature. Events in both books exemplify concepts discussed in Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), Lemke (1995), Norton (2000), and Canagarajah (2004). Both books add to discussions on identity, racism, what it means to be a native speaker (NS), and language ideologies, including dichotomies that both authors contest.
POSTCOLONIAL WORLD AND POSTMODERN IDENTITY: SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING
RESUMO: Neste trabalho, reflito sobre algumas das conseqüências das novas formas de pensar a questão de identidade. Argumento que a identidade, pensada de acordo com os preceitos pós-modernos, tem impacto direto sobre o ensino de línguas, uma vez que o próprio conceito de língua, assim como o conceito de falante-nativo (ambos tradicional-mente formulados em termos de tudo-ou-nada), pede urgentemente para ser repensado. ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some of the consequences of the new ways of thinking about identity. It is argued that identity, as conceived in terms of postmodernity, has a direct impact on language teaching, given that the very concept of language (just as much as that of the native speaker of a language) (both of which have traditionally been viewed in all-or-nothing terms) will need to be rethought.